The Universal has parted ways with Chef Seth Gray, who was responsible for the restaurant’s signature creamy grits. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

The Universal, a popular restaurant in North Denver known for a menu anchored in the American South, has parted ways with Chef Seth Gray, its personable and equally popular chef who was largely responsible for that menu.

The news was a gut punch to those of us who flocked to the place for what were hands-down the best grits in the city, plus terrific other dishes such as pulled pork sandwiches and cornbread rancheros. The breakfast-lunch place sits on the corner of West 38th Avenue and Eliot Street, right on the border of North Denver and the Sunnyside neighborhood.

I got the news Friday morning — a lousy way to start the day — from a friend of Gray’s who emailed me. She said Gray had been let go by the restaurants owners, Steven Sharp and Kourtnie Ray Harris, who had opened the restaurant last summer.

“Things like this are never easy decisions,” Sharp said Friday morning. “It wasn’t pretty and wasn’t easy on either end. It ended badly.”

Boulderites have devoured Steve Scott’s ambrosial French breads – pictured are three of them – for awhile, but he is moving his operations to Denver in June, when he opens Babette’s in The Source food emporium. (Douglas Brown)

Details about The Source, a food emporium slated to open in the River North neighborhood in June, are beginning to emerge.

Steve Scott, a baker whose moist, crusty, and addictive French breads have captivated Boulderites, is leaving the college town for Denver, where he will open Babette’s, a bakery in The Source. Babette’s, which will sell breads, brioche, croissants and a handful of sandwiches, will probably be the most open-to-the-public bakery Denver has ever seen – Scott envisions patrons standing just feet from the bakers and their machines.

“I want this to feel like we are baking for that one single person, like it’s someone’s home,” said Scott, a former professional cyclist who has been baking for 17 years. “My philosophy is you need to see the baker baking. I view this as building community around the bakery.”

Scott also hopes to hire a pastry chef, and build a pastry program around the chef.

One of dining critic Bill Porter’s best dishes of 2012: Chef Seth Gray of The Universal says this recipe is a traditional version of Southern grits. “The secret to my grits is the time and attention we put into cooking them. Many derivatives can be created, such as jalapeño cheese grits, a personal favorite,” says Gray. Serves 8 to 10

Directions
Combine milk and water in thick-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil; be careful not scorch. Whisk in grits, carefully yet vigorously. Make sure grits do not stick to bottom of pan.

Bring to a simmer, stirring frequently. Reduce to low heat, and continue to cook uncovered. Cook for four hours, stirring every 5-7 minutes, ensuring grits do not stick to bottom. Whisk in butter, emulsifying thoroughly.

PB&J French Toast
From travel editor and former restaurant critic Kyle Wagner: “I first tasted this in a tiny eatery in Monticello, Utah, and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread was dipped in egg and fried. The half-and-half is probably overkill, but if you’re using high-fiber sprouted-wheat bread (which holds up nicely in the egg batter), who cares?” Serves 4.

Directions
Heat skillet or griddle over medium-high heat. Makes four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Whisk eggs with half-and-half in a shallow bowl and dip each sandwich in mixture, coating both sides. Spray skillet with butter and fry each sandwich until golden brown on both sides, about two minutes per side. Drizzle each with syrup and serve.

The chef was cooking just for me, instead of a packed room. And I’m no dining critic. So I won’t spend a lot of time evaluating my tour of the menu at Tom’s Urban 24, the new upscale-diner-concept restaurant opening Halloween in Larimer Square. But I’ve got to say something – the place made an impression.

Tom Ryan

The guy behind it, Tom Ryan, has quite a background. Chief Concept Officer for the McDonald’s empire. Big shot at Quiznos. Big shot at Long John Silver’s. Big shot at Pizza Hut. Even from here, removed from you by space and time, I can feel the mounting crush of your ennui, I can somehow see your rolling eyes.

Stick with me!

Ryan also founded Smashburger. OK, you are back. Ryan is a founder of Boulder’s Tossa Pizza, a cool, casual spot that he plans to roll out to other locations. Ryan has a PhD in Flavor and Fragrance Chemistry.

There are deals and there are screaming deals, and the folks at Zengo restaurant in Denver are clearly pursuing the latter by launching a $35 “bottomless brunch” starting Nov. 3.

Running on weekends, the arrangement is this: For $35, you can order anything from the menu — food or alcohol — until you’re sated. That’s a lot of, ahem, nourishment. The deal runs Saturdays and Sundays from 10:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.

She’s too shy to admit it, but Terry Brownfield might just be the Crab Apple Queen of Larkspur.

By day, she’s a mild-mannered school aide, working with special-needs children, but after school and on the weekends, she’s on the hunt for the tiny, tart orbs, which she bakes into granola bars and grates into salads.

She looks for the bigger varieties — “not the little teeny ones, but about an inch in diameter” and cores them with a small paring knife. Brownfield is trying to cook healthier and more cheaply, and free crabapples fill the bill. A cup of the tiny fruits has 5 grams of fiber, 84 calories and 15 percent of your recommended daily value of Vitamin C.

She has spent nearly as much time collecting recipes as she has picking apples. And she shared them with us:

He’s been selling them in Boulder coffeeshops for awhile, but Eric Guthrie, the owner of Dizzy’s Donuts, finally has a storefront. And there was much rejoicing. (Douglas Brown)

Yep, that’s bacon draped across the donut in the photo, and the deep-fried ring of delight is glazed with maple. So it’s like eating pancakes and bacon. And it’s awfully good.

Boulder had been donut-shop-bereft for far too long – since somewhere in the mid-2000s. For the past year, coffeeshops have carried Dizzy’s Donuts, but there wasn’t a shop. Just a guy and a fryer and some killer recipes. But now Eric Guthrie – the classically-trained chef with those recipes – has a shop, in East Boulder, near Boulder Community Hospital (convenient!).

And we Boulderites are so very happy.

Outsiders caricature us as soy-milk-sipping effetes, about as likely to haul home a box of donuts as we are to down a few quarts of Colt 45 before heading off to the paintball tournament. But that’s so wrong. We prefer hemp milk!

And it appears we like donuts. When I stopped by Guthrie’s shop before 9 a.m. Saturday, he said his only complaint is “I can’t make enough donuts.”